Monday, June 20, 2016

Level it Books is the popular educational app (Android/iOS) for scanning a book's ISBN and getting a Reading Lexile/Level. It's being used by educators, parents, and librarians around the world to keep a virtual library of books, manage students Reading Levels, and more. Also, a teacher can use it not only to create class rosters and book libraries, but a "book of the day" as well.

Graphing for Kids is an excellent iOS app for kids learning how to graph. W/ this apps students will learn how to make: bar, line, circle graphs and more. Also, students can upload their own images to use in their charts/graphs or select from a wide variety of clip-art.

Education.com is an excellent site for finding a wide range of educational resources. Students and teachers can find workbooks, online games, activities, printables, and more. Recently, they have released resources for PreK thru 5th grade to help get ready for their upcoming grade and avoid summer learning loss.

Triventy is a excellent site for creating collaborative quizzes or surveys. The way this works is a user creates their own questions or customizes an existing one and then invites students to add their own. Once the quiz is started (up on a board, projector, screen etc.) a teacher can invite students via unique URL to join. Once the quiz is finished the participate get results in real-time similar to the way Kahoot works.

Canva is a wonderful free online photo editor as well as iPad app. This is a simple to use photo-editing tool, that uses a drag-n-drop interface and lets users, crop, resize, rotate, filter, and more to their photo.

Typeform is an innovative new way to collect data. It's a great way to replace forms by creating an interactive experience for the user. For example, education can use this to poll to their students or create a "quiz". Also, it can be used in a wide variety of ways from creating "suggestion" boxes, student forms, and more.

Animate your Classroom is the new iOS app from Plotagon that is great for digital storytelling and project based learning. This is an ideal learning tool for education as no student account is required and Animate your Classroom supports multiple users and shares files easily. Also, there are lots of educational resources/lessons to help integrate Animate your Classroom. Use
rs of Xtranormal will feel right at home w/ the easy to user interface, abundance of animations, objects, characters, etc. where users type in their scenes/dialogue and watch as the app does the rest. A user can even record their own voice or sound effects too!

Epic Heroes of Knowledge is the latest mobile (iOS) learning app (free) from Yogome. Yogome is well known for their beautifully rendered games that are ideal for learning grades K-5th. Epic Heroes of Knowledge has students learning a wide variety of subjects (i.e. Math, Science, Programming, etc) while unlocking a wide variety of planets and battling a large number of aliens/monst
ers. This game has lots of a replay value, is very easy to play, and even differentiates instruction for each student.

I highly recommend checking out Epic Heroes of Knowledge by clicking here!!!

Monday, June 13, 2016

BoomWriter is a terrific site that I’ve written about many times because it lets elementary, middle, and high school teachers conduct non-fiction, fiction, and vocabulary development group-writing activities in almost any subject area.

Now they’ve added BoomWriter PRO, which is a paid version of their product, and any teacher whose work with students involves writing should definitely consider this upgrade (only $2.99 a month) for the following reasons:

Standards-based Rubrics! Boomwriter has made Argument/Opinion, Information/Explanatory, and Personal Narrative rubrics that will resonate with and prove useful to any teacher regardless of the state or region they may teach in.

Makes Grading Easy!! BoomWriter has done a very clever job of overlaying the rubrics and grading feature atop the individual student’s submission. This allows the teacher to look at the work and the performance descriptor simultaneously before then applying the grade/score with a single click.

Capture Student Writing Data!!! If the first two reasons were not convincing enough, this one should seal the deal. Are you frustrated by having to wait until the following school year when the standardized testing results arrive to learn how your students’ writing is progressed? Not particularly helpful, is it? BoomWriter PRO lets teachers capture whole class and individual student writing data in real time before then presenting it to the teacher in a highly visual and easy to interpret manner. This allows you to identify any potential writing instruction ‘blindspots’ that you may need to address with your class, as well as the ability to consistently assess and monitor the progress of each individual student in your class in all areas of writing throughout the entire school year.

BoomWriter is a free site that keeps finding new and better ways to support teachers through technology. If you join, be sure to opt for the PRO upgrade.I highly recommend checking out BoomWriter Pro by clicking here!!!*BoomWriter is an advertiser of Technology Tidbits.

Buncee is the award winning creative learning tool that educators are using worldwide in a number of different ways. Teachers are using it to "flip" a classroom, announcements, create stunning presentations/digital stories, project based learning, and much much more. Best of all, there is a educational portal that allows educators to create, manage, and track student progress and learning in real-time.

Recently, Buncee released their latest iOS apps (iPad/iPhone) for mobile learning. This allows users to create a "buncee" on the go and sync w/ their web account. Also, all the bells-and-whistles that make Buncee so great, such as: clip-art, stickers, animations, and more are all here.

Finally, there is the original (AASL award winning) Buncee for Edu iPad app that is ideal for creating multi-slide presentations, holiday greetings, digital cards/announcements, and more.

Wednesday, June 8, 2016

Quizalize is a fantastic learning tool for educators to create game based learning quizzes. What separates Quizalize apart from similar sites is the detailed reports generated as well as how easy it is to differentiate instruction and see how each student or class is doing on any given topic.

Also, Quizalize features a new dashboard integrating Zzish, which allows teachers to track student progress in real-time, while generating detailed reports and seeing exactly which questions were answered correct and which ones were answered wrong w/ their "given" response. This innovative dashboard makes it easy for educators to integrate Quizalize into their classroom and can be used for any curriculum or subject.

Finally, Quizalize allows for teachers to create "team" games where a classroom can be divided in half and students can answer questions anonymously while not having to worry about being embarrassed getting wrong answer. This is a great way to engage students and introduce game based learning as well.

Choosito is a new search engine for education that I found out about from Technology & Learning. This is a great way to search the web in a safe way as well as library resources. Best of all, all search results display a reading level which makes it similar to Nettrekker and ideal for education.

Storyboard That (www.storyboardthat.com) has an awesome new
feature for over 70 scenes in the Storyboard Creator. “Smart Scenes” are
customizable background scenes with artistic effects, like time of day and
weather. Now you can take the same scene and change it in many ways. Each scene
has different options; sometimes you can remove/add furniture or objects,
open/close doors, turn lights on and off. Some scenes have unique changes, like
drawing stage curtains or turning bubbles on in the hot tub!

To see what the options are for a particular scene, click on
the blue “Edit Scene” button on the image editing palette.

A pop-up will show the options as well as a preview of the
edited scene. In this example, you can change time of day, weather, street
lights, and windows.

If you choose a “See-Through” option, you can layer other
scenes and characters behind the main scene to appear inside the building.

With these new capabilities, you have even more creative freedom than before! If you haven’t already, go
check it out and see what you can do!

NameCoach the innovative site for learning students names and how to pronounce them correctly has just released their latest update, Directory Integration Service. Directory Integration Service allows a district/school to embed a voice recording of your students' name pronunciation directly into your existing directory listings.

Math File Folder Games is an excellent company for finding inexpensive or free educational iOS apps for Math. These games are fun to play and high replay value being multi-player via bluetooth which allows players to play the same game on separate devices. Also, MFFG games have interactive "whiteboards" to work out problems, scoring that can be emailed to parents/teachers, and more.

5 Dice: Order of Operations Game

4 Dice: Fraction Games

(Cost: $1.99)4 Dice: Fraction Games is a math app for middle school and upper elementary students. The goal of the game is to present fractions in a way that is both conducive to learning and fun. Read More Here

Ordered Fractions: Comparing & Ordering Fractions

(Cost: $1.99)

Ordered Fractionsgame begins by pressing the button that rolls the dice. Students then insert these numbers into the boxes on the board, which creates the fractions. Students then position the fractions in ascending order by comparing fractions. Read more here

Grid Lines: Ordered Pair Game

(Cost: $1.99)

Grid Lines is a Battleship-style math app used to teach students the coordinate plane. Students will get practice plotting points on a coordinate plane by playing a game similar to Battleship. Read more here

Tangram Chess: Transformation Games

(Cost: $1.99)

Tangram Chess For Kids, Translations (slides), Rotations (turns) and Reflections (flips). Every game of Tangram Chess has its own story. Some are long-drawn out strategic affairs; others can be quick, but complicated, tactical battles. The winner is the player who can out-think his or her opponent, and make the best plans for attack and defence. Read more here

Skip Math: Skip Counting Games

(Cost: $0.99)Skip Math is a simple math game that helps practices skip counting. Skip Math is a a Doodle Jump style math game in which a girl or boy who jump from platform to platform counting by a certain number. Read more here

Jack and the Beanstalk a Mathematical Adventure

Hi, my name is Jack. I know you have all heard of me before, I'm the guy who climbs an enormous beanstalk to retrieve the princesses amulet. But today I would like to tell you the real story of HOW I was actually able to accomplish such a feat. Read more here

Tuesday, June 7, 2016

PBS KIDS
recently announced its annual summer learning initiate, including
all-new episodes, digital resources and community activities, to make
learning this summer FUN!

With new episodes from ODD SQUAD, NATURE CAT and READY JET GO! beginning in June, and digital recourses available at pbsparents.org/summer, kids can keep learning and exploring with favorite PBS KIDS characters all summer long.

Also, nearly
100 local PBS member stations will host summer learning-related events
to offer educational resources to families. Parents can follow PBS KIDS
on Twitter and Facebook for more information on free summer learning
resources and special offers from PBS KIDS and its partners.

LessonPix is a nice site for creating custom learning materials as well as, cards, clipart/images, educational resources and more. This is a great place to find templates or customize your own learning materials, and best of all a user can share their resources w/ other educators online.

ReadWorks Digital is a new site for comprehension that I just found out about from Larry Ferlazzo's amazing blog. This site reminds me a tad of Kurzweil 3000, where educators can create a virtual class and then assign students reading articles to improve their comprehension. Best of all, and educator can track student progress and assess them in real time.

Buncee the award winning site for creating stunning presentations, digital stories, flipping a classroom, and much much more, has recently released their latest iPhone app that is ideal for mobile learning.

This is a great way for students to spark their creativity on the "go" and create interactive stories/presentations using 1000's of clipart/stickers and animations. Also, syncing between the Buncee mobile app and website is as seamless as possible. Buncee, is still one of the easiest and innovative learning tools that educators are using around the world.

I highly recommend checking out Buncee's new iPhone app by clicking here!!!

Best Ed Tech Blog

Best Resource Sharing Blog 2011

Best New Blog

Best Resource Sharing Blog

Downloads

David Kapuler

I have been working w/ technology and education for over 14 years in a school setting. I'm looking for work in a K-12 environment as a Technology Integration/Support Specialist in WI/IL. Contact email - dkapuler@gmail.com
I'm currently looking to get my Mac OS/Repair Certification, as well as a Masters in Technology Integration.
Also, I have a solid background in web design, w/ network/server support.
On a personal note, I';m a proud father of 3 boys and 1 girl, and have been married for 10 years.